Colorado faith leaders issue statement

Wednesday

Jul 25, 2012 at 12:01 AMJul 25, 2012 at 10:11 AM

DENVER — As faith leaders, we join with all Coloradans and the members of our churches, temples and mosques to pray for everyone affected by this unthinkable tragedy. We pray for the families of the victims and mourn their loss. We are thankful for the firefighters, police, doctors, and nurses who have risen to the challenge and continue to protect our communities every day.?We recognize the rights of law-abiding gun owners. At the same time, we experience first-hand the harm caused by the flood of illegal guns, assault weapons and unregulated stockpiles of ammunition into our communities.

We work daily to promote peace in our neighborhoods and cope through tragedy, but our reach is limited.?We need leadership in Washington and call on our elected officials at every level to put aside partisan differences in order to stop the gun violence that takes place daily across America. We need moments of silence in Aurora, Tucson and Virginia Tech, but we will not tolerate silence in the halls of Congress.??

We ask Congress to strengthen enforcement and fix the background check system:

• Close the federal loophole that allows for private gun sales, including internet gun sales, without a background check.

• Require sellers of ammunition to track sales of ammunition and make those records available to law enforcement.

• Ensure all relevant criminal, mental health and other records in Colorado are reported to the FBI gun background database.